OAK BROOK, Ill. -- McDonald’s Corp. will begin testing breakfast sales throughout the day, a sign of new CEO Steve Easterbrook’s willingness to experiment to reinvigorate flagging sales, reported The Wall Street Journal.
The tests, which start in April at some McDonald’s outlets in the San Diego area, will push sales of certain breakfast items past the start of lunch service, which is generally around 11:00 a.m. The move doesn’t guarantee that the company would expand the project nationwide, a spokesperson for the Oak Brook, Ill.-based quick-service restaurant (QSR) chain said.
“We look forward to learning from this test, and it’s premature to speculate on any outcomes,” Terri Hickey told the newspaper.
McDonald’s executives pointed to breakfast as a key growth area at an annual investors meeting in December, the report said.
Customers have long requested the ability to order McDonald’s breakfasts later in the day, but the company held it was a challenge to handle orders for breakfast and lunch at the same time.
“Our grills just aren’t big enough for breakfast and lunch,” an official McDonald’s Twitter account cited by the Journal said in February.
McDonald’s will have to evaluate whether expanded breakfast hours outweigh the difficulties for it and its franchisees in producing breakfast items alongside its burger menu. Easterbrook already is grappling with how to simplify a menu that has multiplied in recent years and spurred some franchisees and customers to complain about added complexity and longer service times.
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